Jumping the Scratch by Sarah Weeks

hypnotize somebody?”
    â€œShows what you know,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what I use, just so long as you keep your eyes on it. You can look it up in the book if you don’t believe me.”
    â€œI don’t care what your book says, I don’t want to look at that dirty spoon. Doesn’t your dad have an old watch lying around here someplace?”
    A strange look passed over Audrey’s face.
    â€œLook, do you want me to hypnotize you or not?”
    I was a little surprised by the sudden change in her tone. She sounded mad.
    â€œTake off your shoes and lie down on the couch,” she said.
    â€œYou want me to lie down?” I said uneasily.
    I had the same feeling about lying on the Krouches’ musty old couch as I did about sitting on the rug at school, and I wasn’t too crazy about theidea of taking my shoes off either. The floor was covered in a shaggy carpet that looked as if it hadn’t been vacuumed in a while.
    â€œIs it okay if I just stand up instead?” I asked.
    â€œNo. You have to lie down so you can relax and empty your mind, or I won’t be able to enter it.”
    Audrey Krouch was skinny as a stick and at least two inches taller than I was. A sudden image of her trying to gather up her gangly legs and arms and “enter” my mind, like a giraffe crawling into a car window, made it hard to keep from laughing.
    â€œHow about if I just sit here like this?” I asked, taking a seat on the edge of the couch and folding my hands in my lap.
    â€œFine,” said Audrey, rolling her eyes. “Are you ready now?”
    She opened the shoe box and took out a candle and a small blue glass bottle. She lit the candle, but it was so little, it didn’t make the room any brighter. Still, there’s something about candles burning that makes it feel as if something important is happening, and for the first time since I’dwalked in the door, I had to be honest with myself. Even though I knew Madame Yerdua was only plain old Audrey Krouch, there was still a part of me that believed she might be able to help me forget.

15
    AUDREY PICKED UP THE LITTLE BLUE BOTTLE AND unscrewed the cap. Holding her index finger over the top, she tipped it twice quickly and wet her fingertip before touching me lightly in the middle of my forehead and at the corner of each eye. The smell was familiar, but it took me a second to place it. Sapphy kept several bottles of perfume and lotions on her dresser top. I had opened them all one night, dabbing her wrists and spritzing the air in search of magic triggers. This same perfume had been there among them. I was sure of it. I remembered because the smell had been so much sweeter and stronger than the rest, almost overwhelming. I had looked at the label to see what it was called. Attar of roses.
    Audrey put the cap back on the bottle and picked up the spoon.
    â€œBefore we can begin, you have to tell me why you want to be hypnotized,” she said, and she didn’t sound mad anymore.
    â€œNo more questions,” I told her. “Come on. Let’s just do it.”
    â€œI have to ask this one. Otherwise how am I supposed to know what posthypnotic suggestion to plant?” she explained.
    â€œWhat’s a posthypnotic suggestion?”
    â€œIt’s, like, say you’re a nail biter, right? And you want to stop biting your nails? I put you under, and then I tell you not to bite your nails anymore,” Audrey said.
    â€œAnd that’s it?” I said.
    â€œPretty much.”
    Could it really be that simple? Was it a posthypnotic suggestion that had made my grandfather bark like a dog at the county fair and then forget that he had ever done it? The small ember of hope, which had first sparked to life as I’d stood in the laundry shed looking at the blue flyer, began to glow more brightly now.
    â€œYou just tell me what to do and I do it?” I asked.
    â€œYep,” said